An Act Of Care 7- All A Matter Of Time
by Silver Kitten
Summary: Final part of An Act Of Care. Well Helga is about to tell Arnold how she feels, what will the turn out be? please read and review, thanks.


An Act Of Care 7- All A Matter Of Time 

Disclaimer: I don't own Hey Arnold, thank you.  

A/n: Here it is…the next and FINAL part!  Yes LAST PART!  As in no more after this one, all done, finished!  Well MAYBE lol who knows what'll happen.  BUT WOOHOO I CAN'T BELIEVE I FINISHED!  This is like my very first fic ever finished, I'm so proud!  I just hope you guys liked reading it as much as I liked writing it.  I have a lotta other fics planned so if you guys like this one maybe you'll like the others too…hopefully hehe.  Anyways thanks for the reviews before and all the happy birthdays, very nice ^_^ Well I'll shut up now and let you read.  

~:~:~

Helga's POV~

This couldn't be, could it?  Not wanted by either of my father's, I mean this just proves my theory that no one wants me around.  I don't blame them, how could anyone?  It's not fair but then again, it's just logical, and it makes so much sense.  It's like my punishment for being cruel or something; I'm sentenced to live life being alone.  No one to keep me company, no one to tell me its ok, no one to love me or at least show me what love should be.

Love.  Ha.  Such a comical emotion.  Here I stand, here I walk on this earth, craving for Arnold like a thirst that takes my body over after not having a drink for years.  Or suffocating after being withheld from breathing because I'm too ashamed to breathe the same air as him, seeing it as I'm not worthy. Tell me, is that love?   Of course!  It's my deepest secret, my darkest most enlightening infatuation, and yet, it's not what I want it to be.  I may love Arnold, worship his very presence, and deny my own feelings for him towards him so that he wouldn't be embarrassed by me, but that's not enough.  Because I'm not in love with Arnold, we can't be in love.  No ones in love unless the loved love the loving back.

There's such confusion with love; then that's only the love to feed my soul.  What about my needs, like family?  Where is the love that I should feel within my family?  Oh that's right, I don't have a family!  Families are there for each other, they listen to you, and most of all, they talk to you.  They share things with you because they know that family love is strong enough to withstand any secret, and they don't ignore you or obsess over the accomplishments of the older sibling and obsess of the failures of…me.  

And as for love, the kind of love between friends, oh please.  I may love Phoebe like the sister I wish I could have, but I doubt she loves me.  They way I treat her, the way I order her around like she's some servant to me!  What is that?  It's not friendship but it's abuse.  Yes, I abuse and I am abused.  I guess that's fair.

A father I never knew never wanted me, the only father I've known bluntly doesn't want me, my one mother who I can never talk to finally talks to me, and then does nothing for the after affects.  She didn't think I'd be hurt?  Do I appear that thick to her, that stone cold that I wouldn't care Bob isn't my dad?  This is my fault then, I put this on myself!  I had to act so tough that not too many people bought it but everyone!  Cruel pretentious fate this is, and to think there's nothing to do.  I can't turn back time, no one can.  I can't change the past; I can't even fix it!  There's just no way.  I've dug my burdens deep and there's no way out.

The last thing that could possibly, possibly save me now, is Arnold's forgiveness.  After all, more than half the time, his opinion is what mattered most to me.  I need to talk to him, but would he listen?  There's only one way to find out, I need to go to his house and spill my deepest secret, my darkest content fixation to him so he understands.  

If that's possible.

By the time I reached his front stoop, I stood there, eying the massive green door, and picturing it as it opened, and there was Arnold; I'd tell him everything, he'd understand, he'd forgive, and I'd be saved.  I realized we were finally to become friends, and this wasn't the way to start a friendship, to reveal something that could either gain everything, or lose everything.  Well I have nothing to lose but chance and this condemnation to loneliness and emptiness.  

I took one step up, 3 more to go, and stopped.  This was it, once I get up there and knock, I'd have to say something, some simple explanation but this wasn't simple.  This was complicated.  One more step up; if anything, honesty would help me.  One more step up; if anything else, honesty will kill me inside and I'd shrivel up and die on the outside not soon enough.  Final position, my hand in place to knock, and I froze.  I shuddered, admiring the delicate texture of the wooden door, following its every indentation that created the path that resembled a tree, and a memory came to place of Mighty Pete, that old sacred tree that meant so much to Arnold.  Even still these memories could be lost, but what were they anyways but painful reminders of what I never had?

I swallowed, closed my eyes and took a deep heartfelt breath, and…chocked up.  I couldn't do this!  What am I thinking?  Tell Arnold everything?  Crazy!  I turned my back, leaned against the door in pity, and slunk down, burying my head in my arms.

"Crazy…" I muttered to myself.  No way, just no way he'd listen and understand.  I sat, with the strong reminisce of the hurt I've felt, the pain I've hid, the struggling I've been through, and it comes down to nothing.  It's so sad it's stupid!  I didn't notice right away that the acidic burning in my eyes that caused me to shut them tightly, and the stressing of the muscles below my eyes would produce this…tear.  A tear?  I'm crying.  Oh heaven help me, Helga, you're crying!  Why the last time I cried had to be…when I was three.  That…day I met Arnold.  Washed up in mud and the bitter laughter from the teasing and mean words of other kids, it was Arnold who unknowingly dried my tears.  

Before I knew it was taken back to sobs, tears streamed like miniature water falls because I knew this was it, the last straw, the final dance.  I was giving up, there was no use fighting the tears, they were consuming me.  I felt weak, dimmed by nature's natural cure for pain, but alas it wasn't curing anything only prolonging the growth of hopelessness in me!  A flash in the black of closed eyes, a smack against the hard floor, as I peered up into the eyes of my beloved, who had opened the door unbeknownst I leaned against it.  Humiliation.  Confusion.  Surprise.  Oh what was this now!  He at first glanced outward, but then caught attention to me, lying down at his feet with the wind blowing across us.  Luckily the air blew the tears away, but only stalled the fresh tears from falling, and presumed the redness from crying so hard to be vivid.  

His lips parted to say something, as did mine, but no words could be said, and his thoughts I couldn't read because his expression was blankly accused of thought provocation; I sensed even he didn't know what he was thinking.  He blinked for the first time since I fell in the doorway, shook his head as a personal reminder that he needed to wake up and snap out of whatever perplexed phase his mind sent him to and he took my hand, helped me up and twirled me to face him.  We were close, closer than I could ever dream of being conscious and still this close to him.  And still that silence that sealed our contemplation of what to say and what to do.

Finally, and unfortunately, I think he observed I was crying, still partially crying, and his soft face softened yet into sympathy and wonder.  

"Helga…why have you been crying?" he asked suddenly.  I looked away, this wasn't how I wanted things to work out, and it wasn't supposed to go this way.  What could I tell him?  Nothing.  I wouldn't allow myself to make a scene like that, to break down in front of him and spill everything that has tormented me for as long as I can remember.  But that process had already begun.

"I have…nothing in this world.  Nobody wants me…why can't my family love me, or anyone love me?  Why am I not wanted!" I wept, taking my hands to cover my face.  I didn't expect to say that, in fact it wasn't really intended but it came out.  Perhaps I was sick of keeping everything tucked away in the corners of my heart.  My stomach was tied up, my throat was dry with trying to fight tears and failing, my eyes hurt, and inside I was breaking up, I was torn and falling.  Just like that dream I had, standing on the cliff with the world concaving below me, and then Arnold is there and we embrace and I wake up happy.  Why can't life go that way?  Something warm and tight encircled me, my head found a comfort in nestling against Arnold's shoulder as he held me close to him.  

Just like the dream, that fuzzy and fluttering feeling inside was felt.

He let me cry on his shoulder, in his arms.  He hushed me, rubbed my back with his hands.  

"You are wanted by someone in this world, Helga, I promise." He whispered.  He meant it, I don't know why but I knew he did, it was written in the sound of his voice.  So audible was the authenticity in that promise.  But what did he mean by it?  "Everyone is wanted by someone." He pressed on earnestly, and hugged me tighter though I couldn't hug back because I was trying in defending my tears.  "Even if your parents don't appreciate you…someone out there does…I…_I_ do." 

This was a paradox of emotion.  Truly.  He almost reluctantly it seemed broke our hug to come outside and shut the door and looked me in the eye.  

"How can you do that…how can you treat me so nicely as if I never did anything bad to you?  Like nothing mean I ever said ever affected you?  Tell me why you do it!" I ordered.  I needed to know, for sanity's sake.  

"Because…I care about you.  No matter how mean you try making yourself out to be, I always know that deep down you're not that fake that everyone sees.  You're nice, and funny, and sweet and a great friend underneath the wrong impression.  I know you hurt like anyone else, you want and need and your only human so of course you make mistakes.  You're taken for granted.  So say all the mean things you want, force them to appear intentional and you're only fooling yourself." He said compassionately.  This was throwing me off completely.  

It was getting dark out already, the moon hung in the sky with scattered stars and traces of fine, white clouds leftover from the daytime sky.  Tears were finally subsiding and sadness was subdued by confusion only as we looked at each other, oh the irony in his gaze.  

He was leaving me speechless, I didn't know how to respond to his words.  True, I originally came here to tell him how I felt, but that idea crushed under my cynicism.  

"Arnold…" I spoke, for nothing else would have sufficed to say.  

Arnold's POV~

It hurt me more watching her cry than it hurt her to be crying, because I knew one day her hard core exterior would melt away, I knew she couldn't contain in her pain forever and this is the night it gives way.  It was both exciting and tragic.

I just couldn't believe things were going the way they were.  I had already hugged Helga, but that couldn't really be helped.  I think the strange thing in that though, is I liked having her in my arms still, among other times few and far between.  She'd pushed me away so many times, but not this one, and there was a reason behind it I not only wanted to discover, I _needed_ to.  

If I didn't say something soon, I'd be lost in her gaze for who knows how long, so once again I had to break our silence.  

"Do you want to go somewhere and talk, somewhere more private?" I asked.  She sniffled and nodded her head.  There was finally some response to her, and that was good enough for me for now.  I crept inside and grabbed my jacket, and I think she assumed it was for me, but her uptight body lightened up when I threw it around her instead.  Almost a smile on her lips but she tried not to, I didn't understand.  

We walked into the early evening, past cold streets with the supple touch of wind and faint smell of cars that went by little by little.  Dampness was in the air and a misty steam that appeared beneath the streetlights, their orange glow illuminating our walk every few steps.  Our walk was quiet, our steps were close together at an easy pace, and we weren't really headed anywhere but continued.  I found it funny how I could walk and walk for hours with her and be happy with the idea we were together.  In a way I felt satisfied that she had decided to change and be friends with me, though I'm not sure the exact cause for it.  I planned on finding out, however.

"Why do you care about me.  I mean, what reason have I really given you to?" She said flatly, asking a serious question in a tone that didn't seem very curious at all, but it was.  I could tell it was dulled down by emotion of other sorts.  She had stopped, and I stopped facing her, as we stood just below a streetlamp, and the orange glow added to her hair, and the dim shadow it added to her facial features was enticing to look at.  She was a mystery begging to be exposed.

But then her question jumped out at me again.  Did I have an answer?  Did I need one?  I didn't want my prolonging to answer lessen her belief that I truly cared, so I had to say something.

"There's just something about you…" it came out speedily and majestically.  Great, Arnold, now she'll be wondering what it is about her.  I could have slapped myself, as she probably wanted to slap me for confusing her so much.  But hey, I was just as confused as she was!  

She walked again, and I followed, not very far ahead she stopped promptly again and looked at me.  

"What about me is there to you?" she asked now. Aha, I knew it had been coming.  I didn't say anything, I could only look at her and wonder what was going on myself, and after a long pause she yelled again.

"What is it!" she demanded indignantly.  

"I don't know why this intense feeling is coming onto me, I can't explain what it was that made me like you so much now, I don't understand anymore than you do that what's went on between us a few weeks ago would now be attacking us in such ways we wouldn't know how to react!" I yelled back, feeling mortified by my outburst.  Tears rose in her eyes again, marbling at me.  I never placed such anger on her before, yes I've gotten mad but this was mad in itself! 

Steadily and like time did not exist we were empty from words and explanation, neither of us moved or even breathed it seemed.  She had a pained look in her eyes again; maybe it never really went away; maybe it had always been there only now it was so clear.  Then again, everything was so unclear now.  Since I was so caught up in wonder, I didn't realize until after that she was running.  Running from me, her hands to her face in heavy crying as she ran.  She clenched my green jacket though her rate of speed caused it to start slipping.

"Helga, wait!" I called, tears coming to me now as I took off after her.  She was tired, so she couldn't keep up her speed, and luckily I caught up to her.  Just into an alley that was flooded with darkness, the only light coming from a streetlamp across the other side of the street that barely lit where we stood.  I grabbed her firmly but not to hurt her, and turned her around as we both breathed, or tried to.  I could see the dim light reflecting in her eyes that shimmered from the watery tears that formed still. 

As tears escaped from her eyes, sliding down her cheek, I found my hand reaching up and stroking the side of her face and wiping them away.  By now, and by her body's shortcoming reaction, my jacket slipped off her shoulders.  Her lips opened to say something but only a throttled cry came.   

"I'm sorry…I didn't mean to yell like that…I'm just…so confused, too…and I know you are…but…whatever is going on…whatever this is…we're in it together." I managed to say between catching my breath.  There was sweet aid to my heart to see her smile come, but sadness to see it fade so quickly.  

"Arnold…If I told you something now, that would have made all the difference to you and more, before…would you try and understand it…and why…without any way to…and try to understand me?" she questioned.  

"…Yes.  I will.  You can tell me anything." I said; a little afraid but more interested.  It came sharply and undeniably focused.  Sudden but the acute hesitation made it more believable but no less shocking.  

"…I love you, Arnold." She quarreled with her fear to speak.  

By now the cold air that made me shiver didn't matter.  The fact we were in a darkened alley with no telling who could come didn't matter.  All the past in both our lives didn't seem to matter.  The only thing that mattered to me was…her.  Right now, right here, and perhaps for always.  Yes, hah, it's so delicately amusing I wouldn't be screaming for salvation after hearing those words from Helga Pataki.  And yes, so humorous that I'd be looking at her whimsically in this moment, like I felt the same way about her only I couldn't understand it myself.  

I was in a daze, but this was realities daze, the maze in my mind has finally found an exit and it was hard to believe where it was, but I've found it.  To Helga was the end of this confusing maze, it's where all understanding will soon come, where everything will soon start making sense as long as I accept and allow it.  And surprisingly enough what went through in my blank mind wasn't anything bad, but happy.  Someone loved me and…it was great.  

I knew since I saw her almost dying in my arms when she'd saved my life, that there was something there that couldn't really be seen until later.  I knew in all the times before that no one could ever say the words that would be heard until later.  I knew since that day we were three and first met something attached to me, and I think it was a devotion to Helga.  Yes such a young age then and one now, but could it be possible to grow and develop through years?  Is this that something called…fate?  Through destiny's hardships have we made it to that pivotal place where something more is witnessed than explanation, but understanding itself?  That, I could believe.

Without thinking I bent down and picked up the jacket.  I saw the anticipation and suffering in her eyes, waiting for my response.  I couldn't help but smile; it couldn't be suppressed.  I swung the jacket around her and using it, pulled her closer.  Her puzzled face told me she wasn't suspecting that happening, but it was happening.  

"Helga…if I did something now, that would have made all the difference to you and more, before…would you try and understand it without any way to.  Would you try to understand me, also?" I asked her.  Mystified, she nodded, which was my apparent cue.

I wrapped my arms around her back, putting one hand behind her head and bringing it forth.  Slightly tilting mine, I slowly became so irrepressibly close; I was losing sense of anything real, lost in this moment of rapture and baffling detail, as I pressed my lips to her cold ones, that were soon enough warm.  So soft, so confided, I was kissing Helga, and she was kissing back.  The fragment of time when we connected seemed to last forever, or even so as we parted it still went on, only just in my mind.

She smiled, and without any concealing it to myself I knew I believed she was beautiful.  

"Helga…maybe I knew it long ago…but its only surfacing now.  But I…I love you too." I said, conviction in my voice and my gaze.  

Helga's POV~

He…loved me too?  Is it even possible?  I wanted to scream and laugh and hug him, in fact I did hug him, so tightly and he hugged back almost laughing.  And I didn't just feel loved, I was _being_ loved, and it was the most amazing, description-less emotion.  

I know that being at a stage where we're too old to make up for the past and too young to be so serious, that we'd just have to play things out from scratch and take time day by day as it's given to us.  After all, we have our whole lives ahead of us to love each other.  Now is the time we start to understand each other.  I could tell Arnold felt the same way.  This proves that…dreams _can_ come true.  Things _will_ get better.  It's just all a matter of _time_.  

~*~*~*~*~The End~*~*~*~*~

*Jumps up from waiting for you to finish* how was it?  Did it suck?  Did you actually like it?  Should I write more fics?  Please let me know, I'm so anxious to hear what you think cuz I've never finished a fic before and I actually *like* this part ^_^ (not to sound arrogant or anything, but I spent days on this part :S) and I hope they didn't seem out of character, I tried my best to keep them in it.  I understand if ya think they used to many big words and stuff but like I've mentioned, its just how I write, sorta couldn't help it.  Hehe ok well take care people and plz leave a review or an email or something.  And flame me if you think it sucked if you wish, because I deserve to know how bad my writing is, right?  Well bye for now : -) Helga & Arnold forever!

~*Silver Kitten*~


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